Big Ideas

The whirlwind of CES has finally settled down, and we’ve found some of the best products to put on your “I Want This So Bad, But Do I Need It List”.

Not only are they innovatively genius, but you can actually apply these products to real life. Well, maybe just a few. Most of these products are novelties, but you’ll want them anyway. Even with their pretty price tags.

CES is the annual trade show hosted by Consumer Technology Association for all things consumer technology. It is a global stage for all innovators and tech break through which happens once a year in January.

Wi-Charge

Imagine living a cordless life.Ahhh, just the sound of it makes our skin tingle. In today’s world of endless cords, Wi-Charge wants to revolutionize the charging scene. Wi-Charge believes mobile devices are not truly mobile if they require a power cord. The long-range wireless system sends power to your device wherever it is in the room with no cords or charging mats to think about. Approval from the FDA, means it’s safe to use and will soon be seen on the market. Happy charging everyone!

Beauty lovers unite! Or those who just want silky soft skin and will do anything, and we mean anything, to achieve those goals. HiMirror could (hopefully) be the answer to all your skin problems. This CES 2018 Innovation Awards Honoree must-have is a voice interactive smart mirror capable of offering personalized skincare based on the assessments its takes of your face. HiMirror helps you assess your skin’s condition including fine lines, clarity, dark spots, and pores so that you can effectively and efficiently target problem spots.

Missing your pumpkin spice latte? Don’t you worry. With Capsulier’s easy breezy CAPSI system, you can custom make your coffee pods for any kind of drink you want! Capsulier is every coffee maker’s dream for its compatibility with personal coffee makers like Keurig, easy interface, and reusable pods. Need that hot cup o’ joe, but can’t make it out of bed? Pair your Google Home or other smart speaker and make your coffee from the comfort of your bed. CAPSI, Capsulier’s pods, are steel for easy cleanup and an environmental touch. So, go ahead, make a pumpkin spice latte all day every day.

In the age of technology where nothing seems private, Aura introduces a security system that will make you feel safe and secure, even when you’re not in the privacy of your own home. With no installation other than plugging the Aura Beacons into an outlet, the system provides hassle free set up for even more ease of mind. Aura will monitor your home 24/7 and make sure your notified of any activity, while also learning to differentiate a fan from a person from a pet. Aura can cover your entire home or just the rooms where you want some extra security, it’s all up to you! Stay up to date with the app for easy monitoring.

Throw your TV away everyone. It’s time to install…The Wall. Just like its name, The Wall is probably what you think it is. With the thought, “Screens should not be limited by size…instead, they should blend into any home”, Jonghee Han, president of Samsung, sees the value of integrating aesthetics and technology. With a screen of 146 inches, the behemoth can easily take over one wall within any room. Have a smaller wall you want to fill? The system can be fitted to any size with its modular structure and let any consumer create their dream screen. While you can’t purchase The Wall now, Samsung intends to commercialize the product, so be on the lookout for it in the near future.

Every day, we’re surrounded by brilliant design: from industrial, to graphic, to architectural, to the personal. We all make decisions based on design impressions every day, from simple subway signage that makes order out of the chaos of the rush hour to the elegance of the Apple watch interface. Apple has elevated design for decades, and in 2015 anointed Jony Ive, the brilliant industrial designer and user interface guru, the title of Chief Design Officer. (As of December 7, 2017 Ive resumed direct management of the company’s product design team).

So we wonder out loud, Why don’t we have more chief design officers?

As creative director at FLIRT, it’s often easy to appreciate design aesthetics. It’s my job. But for our clients, that job is often not on the front burner. We’re not talking about the simplistic execution of brand standards, we’re talking about the visualization of complex ideas and human emotions . . . design with a purpose.

Our collective job at FLIRT is to educate and empower our clients to understand the value of good solid design and know it when they see it. Our charge is to share the design tenets with our clients in order to enable them to make smart design decisions among peers and coworkers, and also with us as strategic partners.

Hillman Curits put it best:“The more involved and respected a client feels, the more secure they’ll feel with your work and the less they will feel the need to watch your every move, thus giving you more freedom as a designer.”

In many cases an average design can transform into a great design with just a little more discovery, one more question or just one more revision. It is often said that if you are digging a hole in the wrong place, digging it deeper isn’t going to help. At FLIRT we roam, we keep moving and keep discovering, and we dig many holes until we strike gold.

Great Design isn’t expensive but it is expressive.

Great Design is often simple, clean and at times seems so obvious.

Great Design can and should have limits! Restrictions become a built in editor.

Great Design lives by one law, the law of Simplicity.

Don’t let technology and speed rush the process. These are just tools. Use them wisely.

Great Design is crafted by all teams digging everywhere at once, searching for inspiring treasure.

Great Design borrows graphic artifacts from the past. Nothing more inspiring than the Disney logo!

Great Design optimizes the viewer’s perception and the viewer’s experience.

Great Design is iconic and unifies and breaks down our differences.

Great Design elevates our aesthetics and the entire environment, creating an atmosphere everyone wants to be part of.

Great Design is not an opinion or guess, it’s a push and a shove. It’s a constant check and balance of insight and instincts.

Great Design inspires and adds dimension and meaning to our existence.

Great Design is always worth the effort!

Every client, product and person has something to say. Design is a powerful way to express it to others. Smart, consistent and effective design ensures that these messages are put forth with intention and purpose. Design extends into each and every detail, and each and every detail can indeed be designed.

With the rise of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, the music industry has been taken over by playlists. No longer are listeners confined to a single or album, there are playlists for every mood, situation and day of the week. The way consumers interact with music via these streaming services has made playlists incredibly important. Artists and record labels want to get their songs in them. They are curated not only by individuals but by Spotify’s data analytics. Their algorithms determine which songs, artists and playlists are working, making the curating of lists into a science. This has turned playlists into the perfect marketing tools for more than just musicians and record labels. Due to their interactive and customizable nature, playlists reach listeners and engage with them; an engagement that can be targeted and measured. Brands haven’t failed to noticed this and thus have been making the most of streaming services for the last couple of years. They have started inserting themselves organically in the lives of listeners by sponsoring and curating playlists. Of course, the traditional ads will come on promoting their products, but with their lists they can now reach even the listeners who pay for music with no ads. Companies have moved beyond ads and sponsoring ad free listening time, they are now curating their own lists and targeting specific demographics with them.

Take a look at some successful uses of playlists as promotional activations:

DISNEY

Disney and Spotify have partnered several times to promote movies. Besides the traditional ads and video pop-ups in the platform, they have created exiting activations for a few films that have included carefully curated playlists and personalized listening experiences.

For Beauty and the Beast Disney created a digital campaign where, using ads, they directed Spotify users to a digital Beast’s Castle they could explore. Every room in this castle had a Spotify playlist filled with Disney songs and users were encouraged to explore and find their favorite. The website is still live and once you log in with your Spotify profile it’ll use it’s algorithms to direct you to the room that matched your music taste.

After their Beauty and the Beast collaboration Disney and Spotify collaborated once again to create an interactive experience that allowed users in over 16 countries to generate playlists inspired by both their personal music habits and the soundtrack to the movie Guardians of the Galaxy 2. This was called the “Throw back your playlist” and it was an engaging way to promote the movie in a personalized interactive way by making the most out of Spotify’s audio recognition algorithms.

“The Guardians of the Galaxy integration is a unique experience which will transport Spotify users back to the music of the 70s, taking the movie for inspiration.”

Stranger Things was the perfect show for Netflix to promote through Spotify. Given its status as a cultural phenomenon, its love for the 80’s and its plethora of pop culture references it’s natural to think of music as promotional tool. The show already has a great soundtrack and using it and the character’s personalities to curate playlists is a perfect activation for the brand. Netflix and Spotify took this integration one step farther, taking a cue from the popular “Which character are you?” quizzes they used user’s listening habits and the platforms algorithms to match them with a character’s playlist, all filled with great 80’s hits.

Hulu did something similar for their show The Handmaid’s Tale, even though it was a less interactive activation than the other examples they used playlists to promote the show. First Hulu curated a playlist for the show that took songs from their soundtrack and songs that matched the feel and spirit of the show. Many revolving around the theme of freedom. They also had the actors curate their own playlists which matched their character’s journey.

Technology has helped us reach new frontiers. E-commerce has exponentially grown because of the advancement of technology. Is digital currency next in line for a huge growth? Bitcoin is a very popular topic of discussion among tech and economic peers. What makes Bitcoin a modern-day mystery and a ground-breaking innovation is that no one knows who actually created it, not many understand the process of how it works, and what its future will be.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is a digital form of assets working as a medium of exchange. Cryptocurrency is accepted as a form of currency. There are few major companies like Overstock and eBay that accept Bitcoin as payment, because of its unknown not many major companies are currently accepting it as payment. Bitcoin isn’t the only type of cryptocurrency. There are several other cryptocurrencies which are Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero.

How does it work?

What makes Bitcoin so interesting is how it works. Imagine having a dollar in your pocket. Do you know where that dollar has been or where it came from? With Bitcoin, all of that information is available and closely monitored. Bitcoins exist on what is called a block chain. The block chain is a “file” or ledger of all the transactions where the Bitcoin has been. Imagine knowing where your dollar has been all the way from the printing press and being able to verify authentication. It’s a little more complex, Bitcoin essentially eliminates the middleman-which are banks-making it one of the reasons it is so controversial.

How did it start?

No one really knows who invented Bitcoin! Somebody using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto is credited with creating/mining the first Bitcoin in 2008. To this day the person has not been identified; some even believe it’s a group. Others have tried to take the credit of creating Bitcoin, but have been debunked. Other than a few clues here and there, not much is known of Satoshi Nakamoto. The algorithm Satoshi created only allows for 21 million bitcoins to be mined by the year 2140. Back in 2012 the price of Bitcoin was $12. As of today, it’s worth nearly $7000 per Bitcoin! The value is anticipated to only increase as time goes on.

Cons of Bitcoin

One of the biggest issues surrounding Bitcoin is that since it’s difficult to explain its origin and use, there’s a lot of mistrust and misinformation. There have been groups that create “savings and trust funds” with bitcoin and end up being Ponzi schemes or fake “wallets”. Wallets are mostly used to store, send and receive Bitcoins. Another factor is the intimidation of it. The method of sending and receiving isn’t complicated for savvy computer users, but for the average computer users all those numbers and letters attached to the bitcoin seems intimidating. The price of Bitcoin is volatile. Recently is has been an advantage for owners of Bitcoin because of the rise of the price. For more information, we recommend the very interesting Netflix documentary “Banking on Bitcoin.” What do you think of cryptocurrency? Do you think it’s the future of all commerce?

Did you know that millennials are three times more likely than any other generation to reference social media networks when making purchasing decisions? Well according to a 2014 study by Market Strategist International, most consumers today use Facebook for making decisions regarding purchasing- on the other hand, millennials are 19% more likely to use Instagram and 14% more likely to use Tumblr than any other generation’s influence on what they buy. Whether it’s tweeting, pinning, or double tapping- millennials are a different breed of consumers.

Millennials are a group of people that are experimenters; they like to test new things and push the limit on what is “normal.” I, myself, am a millennial and the idea to talk about something like this came to me when I came across an article that was harping on millennials. “Those millennials need to stop looking down at their phones and look up at the world!” I’m sure we’ve all heard this a few times, whether it be through an article written by an older author or quite literally- when walking down the sidewalk and realizing you aren’t paying attention and almost get hit by a car.

Whether your point of view on us crazy millennials is good or bad, you have to admit that we are evolving the digital world and changing the power of purchasing goods. Word of mouth, crowdsourcing, and influencers. Who has what product, or who’s promoting what brand- is very important for consumers in the millennial age. Whether it be former Bachelorette Jojo Fletcher promoting Diffey eyewear, or Kylie Jenner constantly posting ads for “Fit Tea.” The name behind the product is going to make a huge difference in who’s buying it. There is also a fine line when it comes to too many advertisements being thrown your way. When I’m constantly seeing, pictures promoting Sugar Bear hair gummies on my Instagram feed, it doesn’t make me want to buy them, it really is just annoying.

According to Forbes, millennials make up about one fourth of the entire population. Which ends up coming out to about $200 billion in annual buying power. Now that’s a lot of money at stake and a lot of consumers to market towards. So, is there really a secret when it comes to our decision making? Brand loyalty does exist upon us, and if you present us with an authentic product that catches our attention- we will keep on going back for more. Brands need to stay relevant in the consumer’s mind. Brand loyalty can go out the window the minute something becomes irrelevant to the social media world, and the millennial’s mind. Keep evolving and coming out with new marketing schemes to bring in new customers. With the millennial’s decision making process constantly changing, so should the product.

Quite a few of us working here at FLIRT are millennials, and I think that having a diverse range in age is a valuable asset for the team. Whether it be offering different insights to a client, or being able to teach each other new skillsets. The team is forever growing and learning and that’s that makes FLIRT such a well-oiled machine.